You might not know it to look at him, but up-and-coming rapper Young Hootie has seen a lot. Born on the West Side of Compton to a family hit hard by the crack cocaine epidemic that swept the Black community in the mid-eighties, Hootie speaks with keen insight and powerful authority about things that half of the rappers in today’s appearance-oriented game can only pretend that they know. Hootie, however, is a real brother whether he’s in front of the mic or on the block. As he says, “I came up on the block, listening to Tupac, with hood niggas as role models.

Read more about Young Hootie on Last.fm.